Gt Turbo's 10g re-scape

Hi all.

New to the whole aquascaping arena, so here is my re-scape of my 10g on my desk at work. It's a work in progress and for me it's more about the end-product. I have in my mind what i want it to look like in a few months when it matures. Please note this tank is Ultra-low tech. I recently got married and because I was on vacation/honeymoon for a total of 5 weeks my tank suffered from some neglect. Fish were fed daily but that was basically it.

Equipment:
1) Aqueon 10 gallon basic tank kit (Tank dimensions are 20"x10"x12", and it came with a HOB filter w and incandescent light hood)
2) Tetra mini heater, rated for a 10g tank (I'm only using this because it's in an air-conditioned office, our average daily temperatures here are around 29-31 degrees)

Substrate:
Aquarium gravel and Laterite

Lighting:
Swapped bulbs for two (2) fluorescent 6500K bulbs at 15w, comparable to a 75w incandescent.

Plants:
Reusing plants that were in previously, but lasted though the rough period.
Vallisenaria- Seemingly three different types 055, 056, 056B.
Hygrophila corymbosa
Cryptocoryne wendtii
Anubias nana
Very tiny piece of elodea
And two bulbs that I bought in a pack, waiting to see if it actually they actually sprout, they are supposed to be an onion plant (Crinum thaianum) and a dwarf lily (not id'd yet)

Ferts:
API Leaf Zone

Fish:
Tetras - 5 Aphyocharax rathbuni, 3 Paracheirodon axelrodi and 2 Paracheirodon innesi
Also 1 Xiphophorus variatus (there were a pair until recently , will take hime home to be with his siblings)

i think i have the same hood. what light bulbs are you using, and what has your growth been like?

The lights are regular grocery store lights they just have the right/best Kelvin range for plant growth. Plus at 15w with an output equivalent to 75w of an incandescent bulb, if we use the very old and in-accurrate measure of watts per gallon, I'm around 15 wpg.

In actual fact the growth has been pretty good. I had to trim my tank and remove at least a small grocery bag full of Vallisenaria. I had to cut back the Hygrophila quite a bit.

Will post a pic of the tank in 2 weeks. The only other thing i'm going to add is 3 root tabs tomorrow. There's also a tiny piece of Hygrophila Polysperma ‘Rosanervig' in there that i thought was dead but i replanted it anyway and i'm seeing growth. So let's see how it goes.

Pulled down this tank to move it home (long vacation), so a re-scape was in order. A little bit of collectoritis set in. Used some stems I had here at home and then (the shame starts here) I went to the local plant source and acquired some more plants (*facepalm* I honestly tried to stop myself).

So it's been a few weeks since the rescape, so it's time for an update. I was up to my armpits in algae, a result of no cleaning crew. Unfortunately we don't get shrimp here atleast not on purpose any way, and otos are really hard to come by. I didn't want to move over any from my 90g cause I was battling some kind of parasite that was doing a fantastic job of killing off my fish one by one. Finally started to get that tamed. I was only able to purchase 1 oto from the LFS, they had 2 in stock but the other one was in a tank being treated for ich. Not much a clean-up crew so I'm fighting the algae manually for the time being. I'm also trying to convince the LFS to bring in some Amano shrimp to bolster my clean team.

I fear I've made a mistake with the scape, in that I planted the Hygrophilia polysperma in the mid-ground but it's leaves, now that the plant is getting what I assume are all the nutrients and CO2 it could want, are huge like 2" long. Therefore it takes up some much visual space and obscures the Ludwigia Repens.

I just realized that I am the worst poster on TPT. It seemed I have skipped over some responses that had questions and comments. So here goes:

thebuddha -Thank you for your kind words and I am much happier with this scape than others I've done so far. The fish in the tank are 2 month old Angel fish. I've been breeding some outside in my "fish shed". I needed some space to give them room to grow, so I stuck quite a few in there and as you can see in the latest update they've been growing quite well. As for the substrate, the white sand isn't gonna happen. Substrate cost a whole lot here on the island so, when one has 5 planted tanks and 4 fish only tanks, the wife won't be happy with me buying additional substrate just for the look of it, especially since I wanna upgrade/change the lights on the 90g.

Jessicafish - Thanks for the compliment. What I've done is reduce my dosing regime. I'm using an all-in-one dry fert, and I was using close to the maximum amount, so I've dialed it back to half of that and really, the algae looks to be slowing down and dying off. Additionally I've been spot treating with Flourish Excel to kill off the staghorn and hair algae, and the angels have been eating it up. Will continue this regime and see how it works out.

As for the driftwood. The one piece with the Anubias on it was bought from a local general store that carries a few pet supplies. All rest came from Tom Barr via Ms. Jinkzd. I bought a few pieces from her, and she sent me much more than I asked for, so I try to honor her by using the wood to the best of my abilities (such a suck-up, maybe she'll send me some shrimp).

So, I had switched over to pressurized CO2 and for some reason it malfunction and started to gas this tank. Luckily, I was on my way to the kitchen to check some turkey in the oven when I noticed all my little angels huddled together gasping at the surface. I immediately took some evasive action. Turned of CO2 and replaced it with 02 and upped my surface agitation to off gas the Co2. Worked well, within 10 - 15 mins everybody was looking quite happy.

Right side - I think I'm gonna have to pull out the Sagittaria subulata cause it's just getting too tall. Never seen it grow more that 2 - 2 1/2" now I have 6" leaves in my foreground. sighIMG_9841 by Gt Turbo 1883, on Flickr

Left side - I think my Melon sword (Echinodorus Osiris) is suffering due to the lack of light with the stems taking over the surface.IMG_9840 by Gt Turbo 1883, on Flickr

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! That will certainly not do for the front of this tiny 10g. I guess I'll try to replace it with that tiny bit of DHG that i got from my local source. Hmmm , maybe he might be willing to part with some more although it's really hard to come by here.

I guess the key to keeping the sag short is to keep it in low light conditions.

You know it's really funny but this 10g with the DIY CFL lighting has the highest light of the 3 tanks in the house. The 90g is suffering although I'm running 153w (3x33w CFL + 1x54w T8) on it. Anyway, thanks for the heads-up.

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